The Dragon At War

by Gordon R. Dickson

  Jim suddenly realized that he was no longer hearing Essessili. He looked quickly out toward the serpents, and saw them swarming toward the castle. The thunder of their heavy feet, at first inaudible, was building.

  "Ah!" said Brian beside him, happily. "They come!"

  But, surprisingly, as they watched, the first ranks of the charging serpents began to slow. Swiftly, the charge was coming almost to a halt.

  In fact, it had not halted. But it was moving forward only because of pressure from the serpents in the rear ranks. In front was a mound of serpents, three or four deep, who were desperately trying to crawl rearward over the backs of those behind them, but were being stopped in that attempt and pushed forward in spite of themselves.

  "What's going on?" said Jim out loud, without thinking.

  "What do you expect?" growled Rrrnlf, above his head. "I told you Essessili was being clever when he talked to them about pushing other serpents into the fresh water. Those in front don't want to be shoved in; and those behind don't want to let those in front get away from being there."

  Jim sighed with relief. It was ridiculous; but the delay was welcome. He looked again into the southern sky and saw that the space was finally filling very nicely with dragons. He realized suddenly that he had not told either side how close they should approach each other in mid-air. He had just assumed they would come close enough so that they would appear to be a single covering group.

  Mentally, he crossed his fingers now and prayed that, in spite of a certain amount of ancient antagonism between the dragons of the two countries, they might still approach each other close enough to seem a single force.

  He looked again at the field. There was no doubt the serpents were approaching. But it was still at about the speed of a bulldozer that had all its blade could push before it.

  There were five or six ranks deep of serpents, now, fighting to get to the back; while all those behind them tried to push forward.

  Now, as he watched, the shadow over the castle began to be matched by one forming over the struggling serpents; as the French dragons above them began to block out the sunlight.

  It was an eerie sort of light that resulted. The French dragons were directly occulting the summer sun, and the twilight resulting was like that in a total solar eclipse. There were worried murmurings in the courtyard behind Jim. The serpents appeared not to notice.

  "The people don't like this," said Angie, beside him.

  "I know," snapped Jim, "but there's nothing I can tell them that would help now."

  He looked back over the wall. The serpents were getting very close. They were probably only about thirty yards from the edge of the moat.

  "What's wrong with them?" he said irritably. "Those serpents aren't paying any attention at all to the dragons overhead!"

  "M'Lord," put in Secoh, almost timidly, "remember? They don't look up."

  Jim suddenly felt like an idiot. Of course! It was not physically easy for serpents to raise their eyes, and in the sea they probably didn't, ordinarily.

  He had a sudden inspiration; and turned to Secoh.

  "Send your messengers up," he said, "to both our own dragons and the French ones. Tell them to roar!"

  " 'Roar,' m'Lord?" Secoh blinked at him.

  "Shout! Bellow! All together. Any word you want to use for it! I want them to use their voices and make a lot of noise. Can you tell them that?"

  A light of understanding woke in Secoh's eyes. A light of glee.

  "Yes, m'Lord!"

  He spun about to speak to the one young dragon next to him.

  "You heard Sir Dragon! You tell our dragons and I'll go tell the French. Hurry!"

  They both took off with a loud flapping of wings and separately rose swiftly toward the two gatherings of dragons above.

  But, at the same time, Jim heard the shrill screams of the first of the serpents in front—those who were being forced into the fresh water of the moat.

  Within minutes, all of those manning the wall had no time to think of anything but fighting, because the moat had been quickly filled with the bodies of the unfortunate serpents leading and those behind were piling on top of them, until the topmost were high enough to push their gaping, multitoothed mouths above the edge of the curtain wall—to be met by the spears and arrows of those humans that were there—as Dafydd's horn sounded unnecessarily, but clearly, through the tumult.

  Then, drowning out all other sounds, the dragons above them—both British and French—began to roar.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  It built from a few individual voices to a thunder that shook the air and earth beneath it. Dragons had powerful voices; and these now drowned out the screaming of the serpents and all other sounds.

  —More. For the first time, joined in that tremendous chorus, the dragons felt their united strength. Jim could see their dark numbers lowering like a blanket of promised death, above the green bodies below; and Jim himself felt the battle fury in them gathering like a solid increase in air pressure.

  Oh, no, thought Jim. Not now, he prayed, not yet—let them not attack yet!

  For a moment humans and serpents alike stood, motionless, staring upward. For the first time the serpents woke to the eerie twilight, the sky filled from horizon to horizon with their ancient enemies. For a moment no one moved, man or serpent.

  Then, one serpent turned, then another—and after that, breaking away from their attack, the others followed. They tumbled over backward to get away from the castle. In moments, the whole green horde was running as fast as their short legs would take them, toward the distant tree line and the forest beyond.

  As they retreated, the ones who had been farthest back, but now led the way, vanished among the trees. The rest were starting in after them, as the dragon voices, one by one began cease; and the powerful chorus dwindled and stopped.

  With it finally began to die the voices of those in the castle; who had also been shouting without realizing it.

  Silence fell.

  But the eerie half-light continued.

  It illuminated one green individual, left behind by the other serpents halfway between castle and woods. He had reared up the front part of his body, lifting his front legs off the ground, and had his mouth open toward those running.

  As silence came, his screaming could finally be heard at the curtain wall. He was close enough so that they should have been able to understand him, but Jim found he could not; partly because of the shrillness of the voice, but also because of words he seemed never to have heard before.

  He turned to ask Secoh to tell him what was being said; then remembered he had left with the younger dragon, to carry the message for the dragons to roar.

  "Ha!" said the voice of Rrrnlf unexpectedly in his ear. "It's Essessili. Now he says what he thinks of them!"

  "I can't understand him," said Jim.

  "He's using a lot of deep-sea terms," said Rrrnlf grimly. "But I agree with every one of them. If I had him in my hands now I'd let him live long enough to keep on saying them as long as he had wit to think of more to say!"

  "But I mean," Jim said to the Sea Devil, "what's he telling them?"

  "Telling?" echoed Rrrnlf, looking at him in some surprise. "He's simply trying to shame them into coming back and fighting. Of course, it won't work."

  Rrrnlf should know. But at the same time Jim saw that Essessili was evidently having a certain amount of effect. At least the serpents had stopped their mad rush into the trees; and they were coming out again to form a circle around him. Shortly, he was mounted once more on the backs of three others, orating to them.

  Now Rrrnlf was laughing. Jim stared at him.

  "Now," said Rrrnlf, "he's asking them if they're serpents, or starfish."

  "Starfish?" echoed Jim.

  "Of course!" said Rrrnlf. "Would you want to be called a starfish?'

  "Well…" Jim ran out of words; at a loss to explain how he himself saw nothing particularly insulting in being called a starfish.


  "Of course," went on Rrrnlf, "it won't do any good. You can't shame serpents into anything. None of them have any sense of shame."

  "No sense of shame?" said Brian incredulously, finally breaking off his own shouting. He had been yelling "A sally! A sally!" at the top of his voice. "None?"

  "Of course not," said Rrrnlf. "What they're interested in is what's going to happen in their own lifetime and how they can have the best of it while they're alive. There's nothing they want to die for."

  Brian looked shocked. Then his face became grim. He turned to his fellow knights, including Jim.

  "Then let us thank God, gentlemen," he said, "that we have Him, England, and our arms, for any of which each of us would die, rather than bear one spot of shame on them!"

  Jim found himself oddly moved. He did not doubt Brian for a minute. By "arms," he knew Brian was referring to the coat of arms each of them possessed; which also stood for their personal and family honor, and for all else that in Brian's and the others' minds made up their concept of a knight and gentleman.

  Jim could not honestly join them in saying these were things that he also would die for. He wondered what, indeed, he would die for. He was—he did not know what—as far as belief in a God went. He was no real Englishman, not even a real knight.

  But he felt instinctively that there was some part of him that would die for—something. Angie, of course. But what else? Nothing suggested itself, but still he felt a stubborn sense of something like faith in him.

  But faith in what?

  The thought nagged at him. He knew he was an idealist, an optimist as far as the human race was concerned. He believed in its future—far beyond the twentieth century from which he had come. Perhaps it was—he boggled a little at the idea—but perhaps it was that. At any rate, it was the only thing he could think of; a sort of faith in humankind as a whole, ridiculous as that sounded.

  There was a sudden thump on the platform. Secoh was back.

  In the claws of one forepaw, he held a bulging sack that could only be the French dragons' jewels.

  "M'Lord," he said, "I stopped at your solar to pick up these. We may need them."

  Jim forgot all about what had been on his mind a moment before. He whirled on the mere-dragon.

  "There you are!" he said. "Secoh, signal in other messengers. Oh—and good thinking on the gems. You hold them. And, from now on, don't leave me, yourself. All right?"

  "Certainly, m'Lord," said Secoh.

  Jim turned to Rrrnlf.

  "What's Essessili saying now?" he asked.

  "He's—" Rrrnlf broke off to guffaw. "He keeps telling what they think they already know; that one-on-one they're a match for any dragon. He's offering to challenge you to a duel, to prove his point. He says if he can do it, then they ought to believe they can do it; and there's just as many of them as there are dragons up there."

  Jim turned cold inside. He swung to face Carolinus.

  "Carolinus," he said, "you have to be able to do something!"

  Carolinus, who had been staring off into the distance over the heads of the serpents, as if he could see through the trees to the far side of the world, turned a face toward Jim that startled him. Carolinus's skin seemed pulled tight over his old bones. He looked unbearably weary, and older than Jim had ever seen him. Like someone who has been pushed to the limit of his endurance.

  "No! What could I do?" he said emptily. "What business is it of yours anyway? Do you question your master, sirrah?"

  Abruptly, he turned his back on Jim and went back to staring out at the trees and beyond.

  Jim stood where he was, dazed and dumbfounded. He felt a touch on his elbow, and turned to see Angie.

  Angie put her finger to her lips and led him a few steps aside.

  "He's gone like that several times lately!" she whispered to Jim. "I think the best thing is just leave him alone; and see if he doesn't come out of it by himself."

  "But we need him," Jim whispered back angrily.

  "Well, he's no use to you as he is!" whispered Angie.

  Jim turned back to Rrrnlf.

  "Has Essessili already promised to make this—this challenge?" Jim asked.

  Rrrnlf nodded.

  Within Jim there was now a maelstrom of feeling. If such a challenge had indeed been made, then he could not avoid meeting it—not with the situation as it was, and particularly not with Brian, Giles and Chandos right beside him.

  In fact, maybe it was the only way out of this situation. The dragons—the French ones at least—had not really promised to fight; and in spite of their roaring right now still might not.

  Even the British dragons might not fight, though Jim now believed they probably would. Only, if that happened they would be outnumbered…

  But if he had to fight Essessili—in his dragon body, of course—how could he hope to win? When he had fought the Ogre in the battle at the Loathly Tower he had had the advice of Smrgol to help him. But the only dragon known to have killed a sea serpent on his own had been dead a hundred years or more.

  "Secoh!" he said, turning to the mere-dragon. "Did you hear what Rrrnlf just told me? Essessili wants to fight me, to prove whether a sea serpent should be afraid of being killed by a dragon."

  "I heard, m'Lord." Secoh's eyes were shining. "And before all the dragons of Britain and France. What a happy chance!"

  Well, that settled that. Secoh was taking Jim's winning for granted; and therefore all the other dragons would be. He, himself, had no such optimism. But if he did not accept, the dragons would abandon him in disgust, and the serpents would take the castle. He would die; but more to the point, Angie would die.

  That last thought was unbearable. Somehow he must not only fight the sea serpent, but win.

  He turned back to Rrrnlf.

  "Well," he said, "if he really does challenge me—"

  "No 'if about it. Here he comes now, wee Dragon Knight!" Rrrnlf chuckled. He seemed to be getting an inordinate amount of fun out of the idea of Jim as a wee Dragon Knight. "Look!"

  Jim looked.

  A single long, green form was approaching the moat. Jim could still not tell Essessili from any of the others. But according to Rrrnlf, this was he.

  Now he was hardly more than twenty yards from it; and in a semicircle behind him the other serpents were moving up. Jim suspected this was more for the purpose of hearing the interchange between Jim and Essessili, than with a sense of backing up their leader.

  Essessili halted. His shrill voice rose in the air.

  "Dragon Knight! Dragon Knight!" he called. "Show yourself at the top of your wall! I challenge you—show yourself!"

  The die was cast. Jim moved forward and stood with the upper part of his body revealed above the wall. Then he had an idea.

  "Rrrnlf," he said, "why don't you move up with me? I'll talk to him in my ordinary voice. But then, you repeat what I've said, so they can all hear. Will you do that?"

  Still chuckling, Rrrnlf moved forward.

  "That I will," he said under his breath to Jim. "You speak. I'll repeat."

  "Essessili," Jim began, deliberately speaking in his normal tones, knowing that most of the serpents, and Essessili himself, could not possibly hear it. He paused.

  Rrrnlf boomed out the same word almost in his ear.

  "You see me," went on Jim. "And I accept your challenge. As you see, I'm in my human form. It'll take me a few minutes to change out of my human body to dragon form. Stay where you are. I'll be down to meet you. But first we've got to agree on some conditions for the duel."

  "What conditions?" shrilled Essessili. "I'm here to fight you, to show that no dragon can win against a sea serpent if he is alone. That's all there is to it."

  "Not quite," said Jim and waited for Rrrnlf to repeat the words; which the Sea Devil did in a voice that must have carried well beyond the nearest fringe of woods. "The terms I have in mind are: if you win, you can assault this castle at your will. If I win, your serpents will give up the hopeless attempt t
o fight the dragons above you, and return to your proper place—which is the sea—like the sea creatures you are."

  "Oh, we know about you!" shrilled Essessili, as soon as Rrrnlf had done his job with rebroadcasting Jim's words. "You are a two-legs, a man of magic and a dragon. None of this frightens me, Essessili. If I lose they will withdraw. You have my word—a sea serpent's word—on it. I do not fear you. But for the sake of those with me, I want to prove the weakness of dragons by defeating you when you fight with nothing but your dragon body and your dragon abilities. Are you willing to do that? No magic, now!"

  "I am willing," replied Jim, with Rrrnlf backing him up.

  "Very good, then," Essessili shrilled. "Then there's no good reason to delay. I'll be waiting here, impatiently. Oh, and let us hear no more from that Sea Devil beside you. From now on speak with your own voice if you speak at all!"

  "How about you fighting me one-on-one?" roared Rrrnlf. "If you don't like the sound of my voice that much!"

  Essessili turned his head away, as if he had not heard.

  "Still!" said Jim, pointing a finger at Rrrnlf, who froze in position.

  "Now listen, Rrrnlf," said Jim, in a low voice which he knew perfectly well that Rrrnlf could still hear, "you're to repeat my words, just that. Never mind getting into arguments on your own. Now, if you're agreeable to that, I'm going to release your neck and head so that you can nod. Not your voice but your neck and head. All right—released!"

  He released Rrrnlf's neck and head. Rrrnlf nodded energetically.

  "Tell Essessili then," said Jim in his normal voice, "that all he has to do is stay where he is and have the other sea serpents draw back to give us room to fight. They're entirely too close to him now for my liking. Tell him if the other serpents don't draw back I won't fight him."

  Rrrnlf was still relaying this, as Jim turned away. Essessili grudgingly agreed. The other serpents pulled back about thirty yards.

  Jim had finally worked up a combination spell—he was learning to make more and more complex spells—which combined the one which changed him into a dragon with one that magically took off all his clothes, armor and weapons first; and left them neatly piled ready to be resumed afterwards.